Black Atlanta’s political leadership was personally networked with the mayor

Evidence

Indeed, if Bill Hartsfield had a single counterpart in the black community, it was Dobbs, a man as colorful, controversial, and proud as the mayor himself. He was so well known by his fellow postal workers that Hartsfield once wagered he could mail a letter to “John Wesley Dobbs, U.S.A.” from Europe and it would find its way to Auburn Avenue. It did. Returning the flattery years later, Dobbs saw to it that a similar letter to “William B. Hartsfield, U.S.A.” made its way from the continent to the mayor’s office at City Hall. (Although Dobbs would not live to see it, his grandson, Maynard Jackson Jr., would in time occupy that same office, as Atlanta’s first black mayor.) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 75

Categorization

• CANDY: The U.S.A.-addressed letters that actually arrived make a charming, tellable anecdote about mid-century Atlanta politics.